


don't leave me alone in this bed

by AgentBuzzkill



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage, Misunderstandings, Retirement, Two boys who still need to learn how to communicate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 18:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentBuzzkill/pseuds/AgentBuzzkill
Summary: It’s become obvious in the passing months that things are not the way they used to be. They are not the way they used to be. Fjord has grown distant and Caleb has grown cold and he doesn’t know how to stop any of this, even if all he wants is for it all to stop. Between them an ocean stretches out—a chasm of bedsheets and silence that carries Fjord further and further away, and the tide pulls his husband out and Caleb needs it all to stop.He thinks his marriage might be over, and it breaks his heart.





	don't leave me alone in this bed

**Author's Note:**

> A little drabble that I came up with in between projects.
> 
> Title from the song 'Alone in this Bed (Capeside)' by Framing Hanley. 
> 
> Hugs to Ama for giving it a read before I put it up here.

For a while, retirement was good. They were happy. Not perfect, but happy.

Fjord spent his days keeping himself busy, maintaining their little cottage and tending to his garden and always eager to come inside whenever Caleb called, be it for help inside the house or dinner being done or whatever other whims Caleb may have that Fjord wanted to indulge. And sure there were bumps in the road, sure there was sometimes a bit of silence that would stretch on for too long or a day where they had nothing to do or the sudden realization that this was their life now, that they were looking at the foreseeable future for the two of them— 

Not perfect. But happy. That’s what Caleb thought.

It’s become obvious in the passing months that things are not the way they used to be. _ They _are not the way they used to be. Fjord has grown distant and Caleb has grown cold and he doesn’t know how to stop any of this, even if all he wants is for it all to stop. Between them an ocean stretches out—a chasm of bedsheets and silence that carries Fjord further and further away, and the tide pulls his husband out and Caleb needs it all to stop.

He thinks his marriage might be over, and it breaks his heart.

* * *

Some nights, Fjord will venture up into town. There’s a tavern there, with faces Caleb barely recognizes but that Fjord always greets as friends when they happen upon them during the day. Caleb doesn’t go into town if he can help it. Fjord seems eager to spend as much time as he can there.

_ He has a whole life up there _, Caleb thinks to himself one evening. He’s taking a moonlit walk, Frumpkin curled around his neck and purring away. A grounding presence. The only thing keeping him moving in a straight line along the shore.

_ We used to do this together. Hand in hand. Now he’s off drinking. Laughing. Probably telling the others about his stick-in-the-mud husband, the man who bores him to death now after a life of adventure— _

He stops walking and stares out at the sea.

It feels dishonest now, whatever is left between them. He is not the man Fjord thought he married. Danger does not call to him, the promise of one more job, one more quest, one more fight...the need for that left him long ago. All he wants now is to settle down, to breathe, to take a chance to simply be together with the man he loves.

Loved. 

Loves. 

Loves still, loves always, loves with all of his heart and his mind and his soul. 

This beautiful, lonely, wandering man. His husband. His Fjord.

Probably not his anymore. Not for much longer anyway. 

_ Any day now he’ll leave. And he will find happiness. And I will be alone._

* * *

That day does come, and even if Caleb knew it was coming he still finds himself wholly unprepared for it. 

“There’s a job,” Fjord begins, breaking the silence between them at their dinner table as they both pick at their food. “On a ship.”

Caleb sets his fork down. He does not look up.

“It’s a couple months at the least. At the longest...a year or so.”

He feels for all the world like a man being led to the gallows.

“I was thinking of taking it. Seemed like it would be...nice. To be back on the sea. I’d be with Oliver—”

“Oliver?”

“He erm. Frequents the tavern. His uncle captains a ship and they’re looking for an extra hand.”

An extra hand. In that moment it is clear the invitation is only meant for one of them.

In a rush of memory Caleb recalls a face that matches the name. A young man who moved to town not long after them, fresh-faced and eager to tell anyone who would listen about his travels aboard a trading vessel. 

Half-elven. Tall. Handsome. Full of stories and an appetite for exploration.

A fitting replacement, he supposes. He swallows hard through the lump in his throat, and feels as if he is choking on glass. He stands abruptly, the scraping of his chair against the floor startling them both.

“I need some air.”

“Wait, Caleb—” Fjord stands too, his hand reaching out, and Caleb does not know what he is meant to do with any of this. What does he do with the feelings in his chest, ready to burst forth and rip him apart from the inside out? What does he do when he feels as if his heart is shattering, when his world is ending, when the rest of his life stretches out before him and it is so vast and long and lonely that he cannot bear to consider it?

“Go,” is all he says, because why not plunge the knife deeper? Why not salt the wound? He’ll be lucky if it ever scars at this point, if it even manages to close in the first place. “Go off with Oliver. Have all the excitement with him that I can no longer give you.” 

He steels himself, voice cold as ice, though the tears falling down his cheeks betray him.

“And when you come back, however long that takes you, do not be surprised when I am gone.”

He storms out. Hears Fjord calling after him. Caleb walks to the beach and keeps walking and does not turn back. 

He is out there for exactly one hour and seventeen minutes. There is no moon. There are no stars. Clouds block them out as Caleb falls to his knees, saltwater seeping into the fabric of his clothes as he curls up in the sand. 

He has failed his husband. He has failed himself. Waves of pain, of grief, crash into him and he cries out in agony and nobody hears.

Somehow he picks himself up. Somehow he gets himself home and into bed (though what home is it anymore? The home they made was a place of love and warmth and now it is cold and dark and Caleb feels nothing as he walks past the threshold into a space that was once theirs.). Fjord is not there.

For a moment he rests a hand on Fjord’s pillow. For a moment he pretends that Fjord is just in the other room, and he will be in at any moment to crawl under the covers beside Caleb and hold him close and things will go back to the way they once were. 

He rolls over and curls up as tight as possible.

* * *

In the middle of the night, Fjord returns. He tries to be sneaky but Caleb wakes to the sound of Fjord’s boots hitting the floor, of his whispered cursing when he trips over his trousers trying to take them off. Still, Caleb feigns sleep. His back is to Fjord’s side of the bed and he listens to the creaking of the floorboards under Fjord’s feet as he approaches, feels the mattress dip just slightly as Fjord sits down and heaves a deep, tired sigh. 

It must be exhausting, Caleb thinks with no end to his bitterness, to keep up appearances. To pretend to feel something that is long gone now. 

He runs the pad of his thumb over the ring still on his left hand. Perhaps, when all of this is done, he will keep it on a chain around his neck. In memory of his loss.

Of all the things he is expecting, it is not for Fjord to say anything.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. His voice is low and thick with emotion. “I don’t know what to do. I’m losing you, Caleb, no matter what I do…”

He feels the bed shift as Fjord lays down, still on top of the covers.

“I thought you wanted space. I thought you wanted me gone. I thought...you’d be relieved that I was leaving. A clean break, you know?” 

The bed shifts again and it takes all of Caleb’s self control to not startle when he feels a sudden pressure between his shoulder blades, when he feels a hand on his hip. Fjord’s fingertips are the only thing touching his hip, what Caleb realizes as his forehead is barely pressed into his back. 

“Please don’t let me go,” he begs as Caleb lays there, unmoving, paralyzed with fear that the slightest twitch of a finger could ruin this, or that he will wake up and this will all have been a dream.

“Please, Caleb, tell me to stay. Tell me how to make things better. I just want them to be better, I want you to be happy again. I want to see you smile.”

There’s a loud sniff. Caleb thinks Fjord is done, but after a minute he speaks again. 

“I love you, you know? You’re my one and only. You always will be. Even if…” Another pause. A choked-off sob. “Even if you don’t want to be mine anymore. I get that you’re bored of this. Of me. I knew it was coming but I still thought...I thought we could make this work, you know? That was always our thing, wasn’t it?”

“Fjord?”

The moment Caleb speaks, Fjord pulls away as if he’d been burned. 

“Caleb,” he says, trying to scoot further away as Caleb turns to face him. He cannot see much and he reaches out, helpless, searching for Fjord in the darkness as he tries to pull away. “I-I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“Hold me,” he says in lieu of answering Fjord’s question. “Hold me, Fjord, please. Hold me and don’t go, don’t ever go—”

In an instant Fjord’s arms are around him, bringing him close, and Caleb has not felt this warm or this safe in months. 

When Fjord speaks, it is with trepidation. 

“You...you heard me?”

“I did. All of it.” He buries his face in Fjord’s chest, voice muffled against his shirt. “I thought you wanted to go.”

“I thought you wanted me gone,” Fjord replies simply. “I thought you regretted settling down with me.”

Caleb laughs, thick and wet with emotion. “I think we’ve been rather foolish.”

Fjord pulls him ever closer, pressing as much of himself against Caleb as he can manage. 

“You don’t have to do this for my sake. I can handle it, if this isn’t what you want. If this isn’t the life you imagined—”

“I want you,” Caleb cuts him off, raising his head and speaking clearly, making sure Fjord can hear every word. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Where you go, I will follow.” 

“Can I kiss you?” Fjord asks suddenly and it still hurts that he feels the need to ask, as if Caleb would ever stop wanting him. 

“Please,” is all that he says and then Fjord’s mouth is against his. They cling to each other, move together, reassuring the other as best as they can that they are there and that they still want this. Fjord ducks down to press a kiss to Caleb’s neck, to the scarred mark that signifies that Caleb is his. 

“Talk to me,” Caleb says aloud into the darkness surrounding them. 

“I don’t feel much like talking anymore,” Fjord murmurs against the mark, hands moving to slide down Caleb’s waist. 

Caleb huffs out a laugh, and when was the last time he’d done that? When was the last time they’d done this? It has been far too long. “I mean it, Fjord. Whenever you’re feeling that way. Talk to me and I will talk to you in return.”

Fjord pauses in his kisses, his grip on Caleb’s hips softening as his fingers trail up and under Caleb’s shirt. He simply presses his hands to Caleb’s sides, giving a contented hum as his skin makes contact with Caleb’s. 

“I promise. Only if you mean it when you say you’ll talk to me too.”

“I will.” 

“Then we’ll make it work,” Fjord replies. Caleb feels the press of his nose as he nuzzles against his neck. He runs a hand through Fjord’s hair, resting his palm against the back of Fjord’s head and keeping him close as Fjord breathes him in. 

With his first real smile in months, Caleb agrees. 

“We’ll make it work.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always comments, criticisms, and kudos are appreciated. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
